The reworking of a House Bill aimed at providing incentives to attract film, television and videogame creators to Texas has resulted in a boon for videogame developers.

HB 1634 was originally passed in 2007, offering a $22.0 million pool to pull from in order to offer grants worth 5% of a project’s budget. Unfortunately, as The Austin Chronicle reports, the bill paled in comparison to the offering of other states because of tight terms and high budgetary requirements.

HB 873 was passed in April of this year, and while it featured the same name—The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program—it featured loosened terms and leeway for rules to be reworked on the fly, already resulting in an increase in spending in the state.

While film spending within the state in the wake of the shift from HB 634 to HB 873 stagnated, videogame spending increased. The paper reports on the growth in the game sector:

Last year under HB 1634, there were 33 qualifying applicants statewide, spending $58 million and getting $2 million in grants. Under HB 873, there have already been 19 applicants, investing a total of $62 million and receiving nearly $4 million from the state.

Austin’s share of the $62.0 million dollar pie so far? $43.0 million, causing Tony Schum, Director of Economic Development for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce to state:

All the right mixture of elements are here for us to promote gaming, and these incentives are really an accelerator.

Full details of the The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program can be found here.

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm